Dispelling 5 Myths of Personal Branding

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Personal branding has taken off as a practice for managing one’s professional identity. The ease of communicating via social media channels has lowered the barriers to building a personal brand. I was first exposed to the concept of personal branding in 1997 through Tom Peters’ seminal article “The Brand Called You.” The ideas in Peters’ article were a little unsettling- could you really market yourself like Levi’s markets blue jeans? I was skeptical, but the confluence of less loyalty to employees among corporations and the emergence of the “new economy” brought about by the Internet convinced me that personal branding was going to be very relevant. Today, I encourage my students to apply marketing and branding principles learned in their coursework to managing their professional brands.

There are obstacles to putting personal branding into practice. Fortunately, most of the obstacles can be found between our ears- they are our own perceptions and fears about the importance of establishing and managing a personal brand. In my work with students and professionals looking to establish their personal brands, I have observed five misconceptions, or myths about personal branding:

1. Personal Branding is Bragging

Some people are reluctant to embrace personal branding because the idea of promoting one’s abilities and performance can be difficult for someone who is modest or does not like to “toot her own horn.” Yes, promotion is part of personal branding, but a great brand’s true value resides in the product itself and the benefits of the product to users. Promotion is how we communicate our brand’s meaning and makeup to the world, and that messaging needs to be real and relevant.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean was once asked how many games he and his brother, Paul, also a pitcher both playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, would win in in the 1934 season. Dizzy Dean predicted they would win 45 games between them and went on to say “It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.” The brothers won 49 games between them that season, and the Cardinals won the World Series. I would say Dizzy Dean wasn’t bragging- his message related the value he and his brother could bring to the team. Personal branding is not bragging; it is backing up your meaning and makeup while communicating your value.

2. Personal Branding = Your Social Media Presence

The huge user numbers for major social networking sites can lead people astray, thinking social media is the key to personal branding success. Social media is a communication channel- nothing more. We can tirelessly work to post updates on Facebook, send tweets on Twitter, make connections on LinkedIn, and so on, but those efforts represent only a small part of the overall management of a personal brand. Social media plays a major role in the implementation of your personal brand, but your brand is not the words you say and images you share through social media.

Personal branding is a process for identifying, developing, and communicating your unique value. The “identifying” and “developing” have to happen before there is anything to “communicate.” Thus, personal branding is by necessity more than one’s social media presence. You can have a brand without using social media, but you cannot communicate using social media independently of your brand.

3. Personal Branding is for Celebrities

You may have heard of personal branding but dismissed it because you believed it was something that only celebrities and other high profile people need to be concerned with their brand image and reputation. And, you are correct- celebrities in entertainment, sports, politics, business, and other fields use personal branding to communicate with their followers and maintain their status as opinion leaders. Social media has given opinion leaders in the “offline world” another channel for exerting their influence.
Remember, most people who have popular social brands already had well known personal brands. For example, Justin Timberlake has more than 39 million fans on Facebook and 45 million followers on Twitter. His brand is so strong online because of the value he has offered through his singing, acting, and performing for nearly 20 years. Social media has elevated the stature of personal brands like Justin Timberlake because fans and admirers can connect with him as well as other people who share an affinity for him. You, too can build a reputation for offering value to others… and it does not require you be a celebrity.

4. Personal Branding Requires You to Act Differently

The prospect of having to “act” like a brand is unsettling to many people. Their thinking is often something like “I’m a person, not a pair of running shoes!” Personal branding might be avoided by some people because of a perception that it requires them to act out of character. Thoughts like “putting on airs,” “phony,” or “arrogant” may cross the minds of those who believe that personal branding requires us to maintain a persona that could differ from who we really are. But, the most admired brands in the world are known for being remarkably consistent (think Amazon, Apple, Disney, and Google). They are authentic.
Building a great brand is not about coming up with a clever slogan or tagline, creating eye-catching brochures, or designing a slick website. Great brands make promises to customers and deliver on those promises. Do they fail sometimes? Of course they do, but even when a customer service failure occurs these companies work hard to recover from those failures to restore customer trust in their brand.  So, contrary to the myth that personal branding would require you to act differently, you must act yourself- be authentic!

5. Personal Branding is All about Appearances

A brand is a multi-dimensional concept, with one dimension being observable characteristics or features. Product and service brands use tactics such as logos, color schemes, slogans, distinctive packaging designs, unique fonts, and brand characters to strengthen people’s association with their brands. These tactics help establish mental connection between a brand as observed by the senses and its Meaning and Makeup. Likewise, tactics can be used to associate your personal brand with what you. Your appearance, business cards, wardrobe, and résumé are some of the tactics used communicate your personal brand. But, there is a tendency sometimes to put too much emphasis on these outward expressions of a personal brand.
History can be an effective teacher, and to debunk the myth of personal branding being all about appearances we go back in time to the late 1990s. The commercial Internet began to grow and created opportunities to develop online business models. Entrepreneurs did just that, attracting great interest from investors seeking to profit from the Internet’s growth. But by 2001, many dot-com companies were going bankrupt, having burned through their investment capital while making little (and often no) profits. One reason some companies failed was they spent excessively on marketing, attempting to use marketing tactics like those of popular brands such as Coca-Cola and Chevrolet. The difference between dot-com brands and established brands was that the established brands enjoyed the benefits of decades of marketing. They did not buy their exposure overnight; it was payoff for years of delivering value to customers through their products and advertising.

Let Go of the Myths

Any of these five myths of personal branding could be persuasive in delaying or even foregoing the decision to develop one’s personal brand. Do not let the myths define your brand through inaction. Embrace your responsibility as manager of the world’s most important brand: You.
Note: This post was published originally on July 1, 2013

Who Should Be Social In Your Organization?

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A recent article by David Giannetto on the Convince and Convert blog shared four reasons why Marketing should not control a brand’s social media communications. The thrust of Giannetto’s viewpoint was that marketing personnel are not the only employees in an organization capable of interacting with customers and building rapport. In fact, in many instances non-marketing employees might be better suited to be a source of utility to customers given their expertise and ability to help, not just to sell. He cited weaknesses in selling and data analysis as additional reasons marketers may not need to be given the keys to the social media castle.

Marketing is Too Important…

As I read Giannetto’s article, it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes about marketing:

“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” – David Packard

This quote is incorporated into my introductory classes when I teach Principles of Marketing- what I call the “what is…” presentation, the logical starting point of explaining the nature of subject matter (in this case- what is marketing?). The point I aim to make by using Packard’s quote is regardless of your job title or position in an organization, consider yourself a marketer. Yes, certain employees are hired to manage and execute the marketing function, but the burden of implementing the marketing concept of meeting needs and wants of customers cannot fall solely on their shoulders. This decades old quote from David Packard was not uttered with social media in mind, but it certainly fits today’s model of enterprise social networking.

If Not Marketing, Then Who?

The democratization of communication made possible through social media makes David Packard’s quote more relevant than ever. Access to customers and a firm’s target audience is no longer limited to the salesforce and mass media communication. Employees throughout an organization from top executives to front-line customer service staff can be part of the brand’s voice by initiating communication (e.g., a blog or LinkedIn post) or responding to audience initiated queries (e.g., a complaint posted to Twitter or question asked on Facebook). More importantly, the employee social media marketers do not have to be marketers at all. Designers, engineers, and other employees who traditionally have not been customer contact personnel now are empowered to do so.

Before You Turn Them Loose

 If your business is not tapping the expertise and personalities of employees across functional areas, perhaps it is time to put Mr. Packard’s idea into action. Drawing in personnel from different departments outside of marketing to execute social media presence is good practice because of the breadth of knowledge employees in other departments possess. But, before you send them online to represent your brand, ensure that they are equipped to confidently and consistently represent your brand. Among the issues that should be covered in a company’s social media training are:

  • Standards for time frame to respond to audience initiated messages
  • Information that is considered proprietary and thus should not be divulged (Transparency is good… to a point)
  • Establishing topical or content areas an employee is authorized to speak about (e.g., a public relations staffer is a less effective spokesperson than an engineer when discussing product performance issues)
  • Protocol for dealing with complaints or other communication that could put a brand in a negative light.

The Social Imperative 

Marketing should not own social media- everyone should be a part owner in it. Yes, an employee or department will have to take the lead in managing social media, and that lead could be the marketing department. However, if social media is marketing driven it should be inclusive of other functional areas. Why? Simply put, marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.

1 Brand, 3Ms

Today, there are many books, blogs, and podcasts that promote personal branding as a strategy for managing your professional persona. Realizing personal branding is important is one thing, but it is another matter to be able to apply a usable framework to build, maintain, and grow your personal brand. Published works on personal branding are often impassioned pleas by the authors to adopt a personal branding mindset. What is usually missing is how to get there. For example, personal branding experts give advice like “clearly articulate your value proposition” and “cultivate your network of contacts.” Sounds good, but what do they mean and how do you do those things?

The 3Ms of Personal Branding

Let’s simplify personal branding by reducing it to three pieces that can be called the “3Ms” of personal branding:

  1. Meaning – Understanding the purpose, values, and mission that guide what you do
  2. Makeup – Combining traits, talents, skills, training, and attitude that are potential sources of value for the people that you serve
  3. Message – Communicating your brand through face-to-face interactions and online presence.

Manage your personal brand by focusing on these three areas. There is significance to the ordering of the three dimensions of personal branding. Meaning must be clear to you; after all, it is your brand. The other two dimensions are irrelevant without Meaning known and lived on a daily basis. Makeup plays off of Meaning; the knowledge and skills needed to compete in your chosen field are best determined once Meaning is recognized. Message is all about communication, but you will have no idea what the relevant brand messages about you should be unless Meaning and Makeup are clear and are transformed from words on paper into daily actions.

The World's Greatest Brand

More than Message

Be careful about how you use most personal branding advice dispensed as a large majority of it tends to focus on the Message dimension of your brand. Articles, blogs, and books describing how to create a great LinkedIn profile, recommended timing and frequency of social media posts, and how to stand out via blogging are three topics written about often as personal branding strategies.

The flaw with advice related to these topics is that it assumes, if not disregards the importance of clarifying Meaning and strengthening Makeup. I am not suggesting that most information about personal brand Message is wrong. What is concerning to me is that there is much more work to building a distinctive brand- whether it is a product or personal brand- than having a well orchestrated communications platform.

Once You Start, You Never Stop

Embrace the 3Ms as a framework to manage your professional identity. Once you “open for business” and accept the idea you are a brand, your work will never be complete. Brand building is an ongoing process in which you will evaluate and clarify Meaning, add to the tools that comprise Makeup, and rewrite and update the story of your brand that is Message. Congratulations- you are now manager of the world’s most important brand.

The Marketing Concept: Walking the Line between Customer-Serving and Self-Serving

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Students in introductory marketing courses learn a fundamental in the very first chapter of any textbook known as the marketing concept. It holds that the practice of marketing should be approached as the dual pursuit of meeting customers’ needs and wants while meeting the needs of the organization (i.e., be profitable and advance the business). It is possible to be customer-serving yet fail to be self-serving. The outcome of that scenario is rarely positive. You can sell products at customer-pleasing prices that fail to cover costs. And, you can make strategic decisions that benefit the organization but compromise customer relationships.

It is the latter scenario that surfaced in business press last week as Keurig Green Mountain admitted to making a mistake when it released its Keurig 2.0 brewer last summer. The second generation product was radically different from the Keurig users had come to know and love. It incorporated digital rights management (DRM) technology that worked only for Keurig Green Mountain coffee K-Cups and those cups of approved licensees. Non-licensed K-Cups would not be usable on the new brewer, and the company eliminated the My K-Cup feature that allowed users to brew coffee with any coffee grounds poured into a specially designed cup. Keurig Green Mountain got what it wanted- control over the source of coffee used in its brewers. Customers got shafted, at least those who wanted the freedom to brew their favorite coffee even if it was not a KGM product or from a licensee.

Just Ask

To its credit Keurig Green Mountain CEO Brian Kelley admitted the company erred in eliminating My K-Cup from Keurig 2.0. “We heard that loud and clear from the consumer,” Kelley told Wall Street analysts. “We want customers to be able to brew every brand, any brand of coffee in their machine, and bringing the My K-Cup back allows that.” I’m not so sure Keurig heard its customers as much as it saw the 23 percent swoon in sales of brewers and accessories since the debut of Keurig 2.0. Although it is possible that the company did customer research to gauge sentiment about the changes in the second generation brewer, declining sales and an admission of error nine months after launch suggests KGM did not do its homework. The perception is that the company only saw the self-serving benefits of utilizing DRM technology in Keurig 2.0 but failed to consider the potential customer backlash. Perhaps KGM management thought that customers might grudgingly go along with the changes, but in the end they would just that- go along with the changes.

Trust: Hard to Earn, Easy to Burn

It took several years for Keurig Green Mountain to build trust through its dealings with customers. I can share with you my personal experience with Keurig brewers. My first Keurig was a Christmas gift in 2010, and over the next two years I purchased more than $500 of product directly from the company. On top of that, I was purchasing KGM coffees and products from its licensees in stores, too. For better or worse, the Keurig brewer and its ease of use led to an increase in coffee consumption, much of it providing revenue for KGM. In the past two years, I have used the My K-Cup accessory heavily, buying my choice of ground coffee rather than KGM approved products. When my first machine bit the dust last summer I was dismayed that the new Keurig 2.0 did not offer the My K-Cup option. My response was to resolve to not order product from Keurig any longer, and I opted to find a first generation Keurig so I could continue to brew the coffee of my choice. My take was that Keurig became greedy, crossing the line that is the marketing concept and became consumed with being self-serving.

Give Keurig Green Mountain credit for admitting its mistake and deciding to bring back the My K-Cup accessory. Unfortunately, it should have never had to bring it back because it should have never been eliminated in the first place. Apparently, KGM executives missed the class meeting in their introductory marketing course in which the marketing concept was explained. KGM lost its dual focus of customer-serving and self-serving. Now, it must rebuild customer trust… and product sales.

Image Credit: Flickr/Amanda28192

The 24/7 Personal Brand

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You and I have been given an awesome privilege: We are managers of the world’s most important brand- our own personal brand. This statement does not reflect an egotistical, “I am the greatest” worldview. Rather, you manage the world’s most important brand in that on one else can define Meaning, shape Makeup, and communicate Message about you like you can.

Here is another fact about your personal brand: Once you open for business you never close. We live in an “always on” world, thus making it difficult to separate your personal and professional lives. Why? Your Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Instagram photos, and other digital breadcrumbs you leave influence how others perceive you and the value you have to offer.

Caught in the Camera Eye

It almost seems unnecessary to make the above point that your brand is always subject to scrutiny whenever you are interacting with the world around you. But, an incident burning up social media this week serves as a reminder that forgetting that our personal brand “Open” sign is always lit can be costly. Britt McHenry, an ESPN reporter, has been suspended by the network for one week following release of a video in which she berates an employee of a towing company that had towed her car. The video, which you can see by clicking here, shows an irate McHenry lobbing several insults at the female attendant as she is paying to recover her vehicle. The backlash on social media has been brutal for the most part, condemning McHenry for her attitude and actions.

Forget Brand Perfection

The aim of this post is not to pass judgment on Britt McHenry; the Twitterverse has taken care of that already. What can we learn from an incident like this in which a person who has worked diligently to craft a professional brand seems to go out of her way to sabotage it. Here are three points to remember:

  1. Brand failure happens. All brands, product and personal, are governed by humans and thus are susceptible to making mistakes. No brand is perfect, and attempts to orchestrate a perfect brand image will inevitably end badly (reference Tiger Woods).
  2. Embrace brand failure. You have two options to deal with mistakes when (not if) they occur: Deny their existence of accept responsibility and learn from the mistake. In this case, McHenry has issued an apology on Twitter (hopefully she will return to the scene and issue a face-to-face apology). How a brand responds to failure can make the difference between instilling confidence and eroding trust.
  3. Make failure part of your story. Instead of hiding failure, weave it and the redemption process into your personal brand story. Pretending you have not experienced failure is denying your reality. Revealing vulnerability is a trait consistent with an authentic brand.

Failure is an Option

Ideally, we learn from the mistakes made by Britt McHenry and others. We like to think we are smarter or more tactful than to let our personal brands get into such an unfavorable light. Hopefully, you or I will never be the scourge of the Internet, even for a few fleeting moments. However, we will make missteps at some point that could damage our brand. How we respond when those missteps occur is crucial to becoming a better steward of the world’s most important brand.

Image Credit: Sally Mahoney, Flickr

3 Reasons Personal Branding is a Default Strategy for Your Career

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Whether you realize it or not, you hold the position of managing the world’s most important brand: You. That statement is not meant in a self-centered way, but it is a reminder that you are ultimately the most influential person in shaping your destiny. Many definitions can be found for personal branding. Many of the definitions espoused are incomplete or inaccurately frame the scope of personal branding. I cringe every time I read an article that suggests personal branding consists of a professional photo, up-to-date LinkedIn profile, and active social media presence. Building a great brand for a product or service requires more than communication elements. Similarly, a personal brand is more than communication elements, too. My favorite definition of personal branding is that it is a process for identifying, developing, and communicating your unique value.

Great brands don’t just happen, and you will not develop a distinctive personal brand just by showing up to work everyday. Developing a personal brand strategy is not a question of if you should do it but how you will do it. In other words, personal branding is a default strategy for professional growth… you must commit to a plan for managing what are the 3Ms of a personal brand: Meaning, Makeup, and Message. Specifically, there are three forces that make personal branding a default strategy: Competition, differentiation, and indifference.

You Have Competition

Unless you go to work in the family business or venture out as an entrepreneur, you will be marketing yourself to be hired by someone. And, you will have plenty of other people around you doing the same thing. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 1.8 million undergraduate degrees and 750,000 graduate degrees were awarded by colleges and universities in the United States in 2012-2013. And that is just the number of newly minted graduates entering the professional workforce. Another layer of competition will be those people who are already in your industry of choice as well as graduates who are still looking to land a job in their field of study.

You will have competition even if you are your own boss. Consultants, freelancers, and other contract-based workers must position themselves to compete against others with similar expertise. If you have aspirations of working as a social media professional, you are not alone. A review of Twitter profiles to find social media professionals yielded more than 181,000 mentions such as “experts,” “evangelists,” “gurus,” “consultants,” and other positioning descriptors. That’s a lot of smart people! Personal branding can empower you to craft a distinctive identity that can rise above the noise of thousands of other self-proclaimed “ninjas” and “masters” in your profession.

You Need to Stand Out

Once you have a grasp on the extent of competition you will face to land a job in your field or with a particular company, it is evident that you could easily become lost in a sea of applicants and résumés. For example, sports marketing is a field that attracts many college students as well as people in the workforce looking to make a career change. The appeal of the industry attracts many applicants. It is not uncommon for a professional team to receive hundreds of applications for a single entry level ticket sales job or marketing internship.

The quantity of competition may not be as great in other industries, but even if there are fewer applicants vying for the same positions as you it is likely that competition will be intense. So, whether you are up against three or 103 “competitors” for a job, your challenge is to stand out from the pack.You are aiming to develop a distinctive difference that is valued by other people, not possessing something different merely for the sake of being different. Personal branding is a means of developing your value proposition, which can be defined as the most compelling benefits that attract people to take the desired action.

Most People Don’t Think This Way

Yes, you have competition. Luckily for you, most of them will not act like serious threats to your personal brand. Why?  Most people do not apply branding principles to their own situation and do a mediocre job of marketing their professional identity. If you choose to apply strategic thinking to career planning, job search, personal branding, and career management, you will have gained an advantage over others who are more task oriented (e.g., “I have to create a résumé,” or “I must apply for five jobs today”). Although there are no definitive statistics on the application of strategic planning principles to personal development, it is widely believed that only a small percentage of people formally establish goals. Estimates on the percentage of goal setters in the population vary, ranging from three percent to 20 percent. The exact percentage is unimportant; the point is that most people do not have a strategy for positioning and developing their personal brand.

The Default Setting

For the sake of your future, do not look at personal branding as something that other people do. Also, do not assume it is not necessary in your field. Yes, personal branding takes on even greater importance in situations in which an individual is the brand such as an author, artist, or entrepreneur, but there are many other professions in which building a brand with a focus on the value you can offer to others can be a growth plan for advancement.

Evaluate the standing of your personal brand today by asking these questions:

  1. Do I see myself as a brand? If no, what are the limiting thoughts or beliefs that prevent me from adopting a personal brand mindset?
  2. Which of the external forces- competition, differentiation, or indifference- gives the most compelling reason to develop a personal brand strategy to position my  brand for growth?

Remember, personal branding is not a matter of if it should be done but how you should do it. Relish the challenge of managing the world’s most important brand.

Managing the Content Marketing Crap Meter

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A recent post on the MediaPsssst blog laments that “content marketing has turned the landscape of advertising into a pile of crap.” Don’t hold back- tell us how you really feel. Oh wait, I think the title of the post makes crystal clear the view that content marketing is not a friend of advertising. The main point made is that the belief that content gets through to a target audience in ways that advertising cannot has created a glut of marketing content, much of it mediocre. Point taken- but tell us something that we do not know already.

Crap Content Joins the Club

The problem with the contention that most work done in the name of content marketing is crap is not that it is incorrect. The problem is that it states the obvious. The proliferation of content marketing is not the first time marketers have had to deal with crap. Examples can be held up of crap social media marketing, crap mobile marketing, crap email marketing, and yes, crap advertising. If a marketing channel has been used, it is likely to contain some crap in it. We must acknowledge that there are good and bad practices exhibited across marketing channels. Should we expect that characteristic to suddenly change with the evolution of content marketing?

Changing Content from Marketing Crap to Fertilizer

We need not settle for mediocre content, further polluting the marketing landscape. Three points to keep in mind for making content more valuable are:

  1. Content marketing is not new– Content marketing is in vogue today, but it is not a new concept. We have been attempting to communicate useful information to customers and prospects for years. What has changed is how information is packaged and distributed. The temptation that marketers face is the lure of the packaging and distribution formats (e.g., videos, e-books, and social media). Keep the focus on where it should always be- How can you add value for customers and prospects through our communication with them?
  2. Be customer-serving, not self-serving– One reason many marketing channels become littered with crap is that the focus of the content shifts from the needs of the customer to the desires of the marketer. Should marketing communication be used for brand building? Absolutely, but if you want your message to resonate however it is sent it must contain the question that is always on the recipient’s mind: What’s in it for me? An e-book’s utility for someone interested in learning more about your product (customer-serving) may be negated by the six fields of information you require them to complete in order to get the content (self-serving).
  3. Connect content with strategy– A main contributor to a polluted landscape in any channel is the absence of a clear strategy for being there in the first place. History has a way of repeating itself-companies rushed to build websites circa 2000. Ten years later, they do the same thing with Facebook and Twitter. Yet in both instances the “strategy” was to have a presence. That is not a strategy. Determine the information needs of people given where they are in the sales funnel and create content that serves them where they are in their relationship with your brand.

The More Things Change…

The primary point made in the Media Psssst blog post is valid; content marketing is the latest channel in which too much bad practice appears. Yes, some marketing content is awful, but we cannot walk away from the channel for that reason. Do not become enamored with the tools of content marketing to the point that you forget the purpose of creating and distributing content: to help your target market.

Embrace the Possibilities of Change

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I am a lifelong baseball fan. It was my favorite sport growing up, and today I eagerly countdown the days until spring training camps open for MLB teams. It means two things: 1) baseball season is coming and 2) it will bring spring weather with it! MLB has taken its share of lumps in recent years in the court of public opinion. Prodigious home run totals by Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa were tarnished by allegations of performance enhancing drug usage. And, the sport has lost favor among young people as they have gravitated toward other sports and interests that are more fast-paced than the plodding flow of a baseball game.

Weighing Changes to the MLB Product

Major League Baseball is at a pivotal crossroads. The business of MLB is doing quite well, thank you, with robust revenues from media contracts and sponsorship deals. However, fan relationships with MLB are somewhat tenuous. We have many options for entertainment, including some that do not involve sports and do not require leaving home to venture to a stadium for several hours.

The position that MLB finds itself in has prompted new commissioner Rob Manfred to explore ways to streamline the game consumption experience and pack more action into it. Among the changes proposed by MLB are:

  • Speeding up the pace of game play– One of the criticisms of baseball has always been the slow pace of play relative to other sports. This difference is magnified in a world in which we allow ourselves little down time- we multitask, watch top 10 plays of the day, and gather sports news 140 characters at a time. MLB experimented with rules changes to speed up play in the Arizona Fall League including a no-pitch intentional walk (rather than throwing four balls on purpose to walk a batter), maximum 2:30 break between innings as well as during a pitching change, and no more than three “timeouts” per team during a game.
  • Increase offense by reducing size of the strike zone– Scoring has decreased steadily since an all-time high of 5.14 runs per game in 2000. Last season, MLB games averaged 4.07 runs per game, the lowest since 1982. The league-wide strike-out rate was the highest ever and the walk rate was the lowest since 1968. One reasons blamed for the decline in runs scored is an expanding strike zone. A review of strike zones in MLB found the average strike zone expanded from 436 square inches in 2008 to 475 square inches in 2014. MLB rules committee will monitor the size of the strike zone in 2015 and consider making changes beginning with the 2016 season.

No rules changes have been made yet for any of the product elements mentioned. But, give MLB credit for acknowledging that issues exist and taking steps to evaluate how to make the product more exciting for fans.

What can be Learned from MLB about Product Marketing

Marketers can benefit from the situation that MLB is currently facing. Specifically, three steps that MLB has taken that could ultimately lead to a better product are:

  1. Acknowledge flaws– Some of the business metrics for MLB suggest all is well, but leadership is savvy enough to see that flaws exist in the product. When a business is unable or unwilling to acknowledge its weaknesses, there is little chance they will be overcome.
  2. Learn from others– If your business is falling short in some way when it comes to delivering the best customer experience and you acknowledge it, a useful first step can be to observe how others have dealt with similar issues. In the case of MLB, it has borrowed practices from the NFL and NBA to incorporate video review of uncertain umpire calls and the pace of play experiments. Sometimes, you can even go outside your industry or category to learn from other firms’ successes in improving the customer experience.
  3. Don’t assume– While there has been much talk about pace of play diminishing the MLB consumption experience, it may not be the culprit when it comes to turning off prospective baseball fans. It has been pointed out that the length of NFL and college football games have increased, yet the popularity of those sports is as high as ever. If MLB focused all of its product improvement efforts on speeding up the game because they thought that is what mattered to people, it would have overlooked the decreasing run scoring trend. One of the easiest traps we fall into as marketers is a false belief that we understand what is happening in the market and know what our customers want because of our experience. Simply put- don’t make assumptions!

Will MLB implement changes that it has been floating? The brand has one other characteristic that is somewhat unique; baseball is a sport steeped in tradition. Change may be hard to sell to traditionalist fans. But, given that businesses operate in environments that are ever changing, it is incumbent on all marketers to embrace the possibilities of change.

Can McDonald’s be Saved?

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What does a sports team do when performance fails to meet expectations? Often, the coach is replaced in an effort to energize the team and provide new direction. You cannot get rid of the entire team at once, and since the coach is the figurehead leader of the organization it is usually the most prudent course of action to stimulate change. This sports analogy plays out in business, too. A CEO or other leaders in the C-suite tend to take the fall for disappointing performance.

The latest example of a business leader paying the price for unmet expectations is Don Thompson, the CEO of McDonald’s. Thompson is a 25-year veteran of the company and only 51 years old, but he will be “retiring” March 1 after a two-year stint as CEO. McDonald’s has experienced a precipitous slide under Thompson that includes 14 consecutive months of declining store sales and five straight quarters of declining profits. Just as it is easier to for a sports team to fire the coach and not all of its players, the Board of Directors at McDonald’s can at least demonstrate it is making an effort to reverse the company’s fortunes by making a change in leadership. Unfortunately, the problems faced by McDonald’s go far beyond the person sitting in the CEO chair.

“It’s not You, It’s Me”

The problem faced by McDonald’s is not who is in the role of CEO, CMO, or any other individual. McDonald’s has been a mainstay in American culture because it resonated with families. However, many people that were McDonald’s fans as children and adolescents find when they become adults that the value proposition of McDonald’s does not fit their lifestyle. Whether it is young parents wanting to have their children adopt healthy lifestyle practices early on or young adults who have tired of the menu offerings of McDonald’s, many customers have grown apart from the brand. It is not as much about McDonald’s doing something to alienate these consumers as it is changes in life cycle stage and lifestyle have led to them drifting away from the brand.

A Matter of Relevance

Changing tastes certainly play a role in the woes McDonald’s is facing, but it is not the only problem faced. The brand has lost relevance among many consumers. Fast casual brands like Chipotle and Panera Bread give diners an alternative to quick-service burgers. And, the experience of eating at McDonald’s can be more like going to the DMV than enjoying a relaxing meal at a restaurant. To McDonald’s credit, it has invested heavily in updating its stores to be more like a Starbucks than a McDonald’s. Unfortunately, it has looked more like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. The physical environment might be improved, but the menu is largely still the same fare that customers have drifted away from eating. McDonald’s still excels at offering price-based value, but it may have painted itself into a corner that it cannot escape. Is it destined to be perceived only as the value-priced restaurant brand?

Read the Signs

McDonald’s has been a fixture in America’s popular culture for decades, and its foray into foreign markets is a slice of Americana that can be found around the world. As it struggles to find its identity among today’s consumers, McDonald’s may have hit on a sweet spot that resonates with consumers in its “Signs” commercial. The spot shows signs from local McDonald’s displaying a variety of messages of support, sympathy, and encouragement inspired by events in their local communities or major events like 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing.

McDonald’s can tinker with its menu all it wants, but the long-term success of the brand will depend less on what new sandwiches are on the menu and more on the impact McDonald’s stores have in the neighborhoods where they operate. “Signs” is a powerful message that there are people behind the McDonald’s brand, people who care about what is going on in the lives of customers and the good of the community.